This Thai style sweet sour chilli is good to have as a dipping sauce, marination for BBQ, or simply drizzle it on top of fried fish. This is not a very spicy paste , suitable for those who like to have a glimpse of spicy food but couldn't stand the burning sensation on the tongue. If you love it more spicy, feels free to add more chillies!

This is freshly blended, you can still see those bubbles in the paste!

It had been a while since the last time I prepared spicy dish. We started to miss those hot tingling sensation on the tongue that get all your sweat glands working hard. Yes, more sweat, more 'shiok', more addictive! I always ended up with sausages lips (lips so swollen until look like the shape of sausages) after finishing any worthy mentioned sambal.

This pungent, sweet, sour and hot sambal is best served with a bowl of piping hot rice. If you happen to be preparing nasi lemak, this is the prefect accompaniment that you could ever get. With this sambal alone, it is enough to get you finish up a whole bowl of rice and still asking for more.

In Singapore, chilli/ sambal are usually served free from almost every restaurant that you are dining at. Sometimes, the taste of the sambal can become the main attraction of the restaurant.

Are you aware that spiciness levels can be measured? A Scoville scale is used to show the pungency (spicy heat) level of chilli peppers, reflected in Scoville heat units, a function of capsaicin concentration. Are you ready to challenge (or rather, get tortured by??) the chilli pepper at the top of the list yet? That is assuming if you could get a hand on it!

Homemade Special Sambal

Ingredients

25gdried chillies, deseeded and soaked for an hour

40gdried shrimp, washed

4g belacan (shrimp paste)

6 shallots,sliced and fried until crispy

1 tbspsugar

70gassam (the weight shown is seed inclusive), discard the seed and dissolve in 3/4 cup water

What can you do with red bean paste? Red bean pau, red bean pastry, red bean lye water dumpling, red bean pancake... So many choices and I really love to try 'em all, hopefully.

I often find store-bought red bean dessert or pastry too sweet for my liking, so homemade one is just the perfect choice. You get to adjust the sweetness, the texture.... and most importantly, say bye bye to additives. Do you like it coarse (still able to bite down the beans), or you prefer a smooth paste? It is up to you.

Red Bean Paste

Ingredients

250gred beans

3/4 cup sugar

3 tablespoon oil

Cooking Directions

Rinse and soak red bean in water for 2 hours.

Bring a pot of water to boil, add in red beans. The water should be around 1 - 2 inch above the beans.

Cook the beans until soft enough to be mashed by your fingers, around 1 hour.

Back then as a child, Duan Wu festival / dragon boat festival / dumpling festival is always a festival that I very much looking forward to. I wasn't really concerned about how the festival came by, all that I had in my mind was 'dumpling, dumpling, dumpling...'. Few weeks ahead the festival, my mom would be busy sourcing and preparing ingredients for dumplings. She would usually made dozens of 'em- ranging from bak chang (dumpling with pork), kee chang / kan sui chang (with or without red bean) to nyonya chang. I wasn't a big eater but I could gulp down 2 bak chang effortlessly. Those dumplings, if not finished, could be kept in freezer and stored for months. Whenever you feel like eating it, simply heat it up and a meal is ready.

Now, perhaps, it is time for my turn to make those delicious dumplings for the family. Afterall, good food are best shared.

If you are interested in the history of the festival, below is the story quoted from Wikipedia:

The story best known in modern China holds that the festival commemorates the death of the poet and minister Qu Yuan of the ancient state of Chu during the Warring States period of the Zhou Dynasty. A cadet member of the Chu royal house, Qu served in high offices. However, when the king decided to ally with the increasingly powerful state of Qin, Qu was banished for opposing the alliance and even accused of treason.During his exile, Qu Yuan wrote a great deal of poetry. Twenty-eight years later, Qin captured Ying, the Chu capital. In despair, Qu Yuan committed suicide by drowning himself in the Miluo River.It is said that the local people, who admired him, raced out in their boats to save him or at least retrieve his body. This is said to have been the origin of dragon boat races. When his body could not be found, they dropped balls of sticky rice into the river so that the fish would eat them instead of Qu Yuan's body. This is said to be the origin of zong zi (dumpling)

Wash and soak bamboo leaves and dumpling string overnight. Weigh the leaves down with something heavy.

Place the bamboo leaves in a big pot and fill up water to cover the leaves. Bring the water to boil. Remove and set aside the leaves.

Rinse the glutinous rice with water untill water runs clear. Soak the glutinous rice overnight.

Drain glutinous rice.

Mix lye with 2 tablespoon of hot water to dissolve it, add to glutinous rice, stir to mix well. Let it sit for an hour.

Secure the bamboo string on a pole or bar (if none of it available, get a helper to hold it while you tying your dumpling)

Put 2 bamboo leaves together, fold the leaves as shown.

Spoon in glutinous rice and spread it on the leaves as shown so that the red bean will not touch the leaves.

Add red bean.

Top with glutinous rice, cover completely and fold the leaves as shown.

Wrap and tie dumplings (have to be tight so that the leaves won't open up during process of cooking.

Boil a pot of water enough to cover all dumplings. When the water is boiling, add in the dumplings and cook for 4 hours (or equivalent of 4 hours using your pressure cooker - I cooked 40 minutes on 2nd orange line for WMF pressure cooker).

Remove dumplings from the water. Leave till cool by hanging it. Place a bowl/plate below as there will be dripping water.

Eat the dumpling as it is or dip it in sugar. For storing, keep in the fridge for several days or freeze it and it can be kept for few months.

I have been thinking of making muffin, procrastination was my only problem. This week, I got 3 boxes of durians from the market place and we were all overdosed with durians. Making durian dessert is a good way to trick and coax my family to finish 'em off. With my new found motivation, I am now whipping up this durian chocolate muffin, right after my durian mochi attempt.

Do you know the muffin man? You don't need to know him to enjoy these delicious muffin. Muffin is one of the easy dessert that doesn't require much time to make.

Chocolate with durian, I bet this is surely a 'heaty' dessert according to the Chinese definition.

Here comes the durian season again! Everywhere I go, I see these spiky thorny fruits that warrant much love and hate. Some people swore by it, but some couldn't even stand the smell of it. How about you?

I was only planning to buy 2 boxes of durian, but the seller was on his mission to persuade me to get 3 boxes. Ends up, I bought 2 boxes and he gave me 1 box for free! Who can resist it, right? So now, I have to think of creative ways to get my family to finish them off!

Durian mochi, yummy yummy!

Durian MochiMakes around 12 mochi

Ingredients

1 cupglutinous rice flour

1/4sugar

3/4 cup milk

5 tablespoon durian paste (scrape out from fresh durian)

a pinch of salt

some cornstarch/ potato starch for dusting

Cooking Directions

In a saucepan, mix the glutinous rice flour, sugar, and milk, and salt together until no visible lump.

Over medium low heat, heat up the mixture, keep stirring. It will start to thicken.

QI have never been to France. The best French onion soup that I had ever tried was the one in the States.The consistency of the soup is slightly thicker than those that I usually had, and the soup is topped with a baguette and a blanket of chewy Gruyere Cheese.

The Gruyere cheese is very chewy and stretchy, we almost got choked by it, can you believe it?

The pain of making French onion soup is the process of caramelising the onion (simmer the onion over low heat, keep stirring until the onion turn golden brown). I took almost an hour and a half, and I still think I should have done more. Onion tasted much more fragrant after caramelised.

This recipe is adapted from here with some adjustments on technique and quantity of ingredients.

French Onion Soup

Ingredients

100g butter

4 onions, thinly sliced

1garlic clove, crushed

2bay leaves

1/4 tspdried thyme

1 tspwhite sugar

2 tbspall purpose flour

2 cupbroth (beef or chicken)

1.5 tbspbalsamic vinegar

1/2 cupred wine/dry white wine/sherry

4 slicesFrench baguette

a pinch of salt and pepper

200gswiss cheese / Gruyere/ sharp cheddar, grated

Cooking Directions

In a pan, melt butter over medium heat, add onion and stir fry until the onion turn transparent and golden brown ( this will take around 1.5 hour)

Having a weakness for sour food, tom yum soup had been one of my all time favorites. This hot and sour soup is originated from Thailand and had been popularised around the world. A little bowl of this could warm you up in an instant, and whet your appetite with the refreshing aromatic herbs in the soup. I could easily gulp down a few bowls of these, so the serving suggestion is merely serving as a guide.

Don't get taken aback by the long list of ingredients. It is actually a simple dish, not much skill needed and you simply need to put the ingredients together. Many people attribute the success of this dish to the addition of 'prik pao' roasted chilli in oil. I didn't have it on hand and... fine, I am lazy to go around looking for it either. I actually fell back to the last resort (refer to the note below the recipe) and the soup still turns up tasty as ever.

If you love sour soup like me, try it and you will fall in love with it!

Tom Yam Soup

The recipe serves 3

Level of difficulty : Easy

Ingredients

3 cupchicken / prawn stock

3 stalkslemongrass, cut into 1 inch long

2 inch by 2 inchfresh galangal, sliced

8kaffir lime leaves

6chilli padi (bird's eye chilli)

2shallots, sliced

12prawns (shrimp), medium size, deveined, deshelled, tail-on

Fresh cilantro for garnish

Pinch of salt

(B)

1tomato, medium size, cut into 8 cubes

3 tablespoonsfish sauce

1 cupstraw mushroom, halved

6 tablespoonslime juice

1teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons 'prik pao' roasted chilli in oil*

Cooking Directions

In a pot, bring chicken broth to a boil. Add lemongrass, galangal, lime leaves, chilli padi and shallots. Turn the heat to medium and simmer for 30 minutes.

Add ingredients (B) and simmer for another 5 minutes.

Lastly, add in prawns and simmer until the prawns curl up and turn pink (cooked through).

Serve hot and garnish with cilantro.

*if you do not have 'prik pao' roasted chilli in oil, you can substitute it with tom yum paste, or thai chilli paste. Last resort? Just heat up 2 tablespoon of oil and stir-fry 1 tablespoon chilli powder until fragrant.

Do you know that during World War 1, It was said that Anzac biscuits were sent by wives to their soldier husbands abroad? Made with mainly rolled oats, flour and desiccated coconut, these biscuits are versatile, filling, nutritious, delicious and do not spoil easily (and of course, made with much love). No wonder it became a perfect choice of food to be brought for long traveling.

Thank goodness that today, we get to enjoy it even though we are not having a war. Anzac biscuits can be made chewy or crispy. My families are obsessed with crispy cookies. This recipe, with the addition of sunflower seeds, will help you to make the ultimate crispy, crumble in the mouth type of Anzac cookies.

I used to think that a dessert as delicious as tiramisu is sure to require a ton of skill to make. In fact, it doesn't. It is so quick and easy that you don't even need an oven to make it. What's more, you can surely whisk all the ingredients together with a handheld mixer, an electrical one is optional.

If you are concern about raw eggs in tiramisu, this recipe is perfect for you. Without raw egg, shelf live is extended and you can feed them to your family with peace of mind. Running out of idea what to bring for a potluck event? Don't worry, simply impress your friends with this sophisticated looking dessert!

Dip the sponge fingers into the coffee, quickly remove it from the coffee before it gets too soggy. Top the mascarpone mixture with just enough sponge fingers (if needed, break the sponge fingers to fit the size of the container).

Dust cocoa powder on top using a fine sieve.

Repeat step (2) thru (4) until almost reach the top of the container.

The final layer should be mascarpone mixture. Top the mascarpone mixture with cocoa powder.

Rice is the staple food in most part of Asia. We have rice almost everyday -for lunch, for dinner, even for dessert. Sometimes, we got so used to having it until it got rather boring.

Yellow rice is one of my favorite, it turns a boring rice dish to a delicious delicacy tastes wonderful even on its own. The fragrance from the coconut milk, turmeric, lime leaves, all absorbed by the rice rendering every mouthful a pleasant burst of flavor.

These cookies although looked simple, have a very lovely name - white lovers (shiroi koibito). Sounds romantic, isn't it? However, the cookies below are merely an imitation of the famous Shiroi Koibito, which is one of the most applauded Japanese chocolate cookies, also the signature cookies from Ishiya Company in Hokkaido. It was often bought as souvenir from Japan, although recently I have started to see it selling at department stores such as Isetan in Singapore.

A layer of creamy white chocolate, sandwiched in between two pieces of cat tongue cookies (langue de chat), readily crumble away in the mouth. These cookies are baked to golden brown at the edges while remain light color in the middle. Langue de Chat is a kind of delicate,crunchy and light cookies originated from France, taste good even on its own.

Do you still remember the first time you fell in love? Surprise your loved one with these lovely cookies today.

Shiroi Koibito

Ingredients
Cookies

50gcake flour

10galmond powder

1egg white

50gpowdered sugar

50gbutter

Fillings

80gwhite chocolate

Cooking Directions

Cream the butter with powdered sugar together

Divide egg white into 3 portion, add in 1/3 at a time. Whisk until pale yellow in color.

Add in flour and almond powder, mix until well combined.

Preheat the oven to 180 degree Celsius

Line the baking sheet with baking paper.

Transfer the batter into a piping bag, snip off the end.

Pipe the batter to your desire shape, leaving at least 1/2 inch in between as the batter will spread during baking.

Bake the cookies for 8 minutes.

Remove the cookies from baking paper, air the cookies on a wire rack.

Melt the white chocolate in a completely dry sauce pan, under the lowest heat.

Spread the white chocolate on a cookie and cover it with another cookie. Repeat for the rest of the cookies.

Note: The cookie will be soft when fresh out of the oven, it will harden in a while. Keep the cookies into a airtight container once it harden.